Tony Khan explained to Cage that he would rather not bring him back to TV to lose.
October 2021 was the last time that Brian Cage wrestled on AEW TV. He is now a part of the Ring of Honor brand and is paired with Kaun, Toa Liona and Prince Nana as a part of the reformed ‘Embassy’.
The Embassy scored a win in a trios match at Death Before Dishonor and prior to the event, Cage sat down with K & S WrestleFest for a virtual signing. He recounted a conversation he had with AEW President Tony Khan about not being used on TV.
Khan explained to Cage that the idea of bringing him back to lose to Wardlow was suggested, but Khan said Cage is too big of a star to do that to. Cage expressed that he just wanted to wrestle quality matches, but Khan insisted that bringing Cage back to wrestle and lose would be a disservice to him.
Actually Tony [Khan] — and I didn’t even mention it but, he said that too [addressing the idea of bringing Cage back to TV to lose to Wardlow] because he obviously heard or people thought that I was going to and he goes, ‘Yeah, people brought that up to me’ and he’s like, ‘No way, I wouldn’t job you out to Wardlow like that. You’re too big of a star to do that too’ so, I mean he paid me a compliment in that regard. But… and that’s one thing I was talking to him about like, you know, I’m not being used. I’m like, ‘Dude, this sucks. What’s going on? I wanna wrestle’ and that was one thing he said too, he was just like, ‘Well I could be bringing you on TV and just having you lose to everybody. That would really be burying you as opposed to using you.’ I guess so, and that’s when he brought up the Wardlow thing.
In September 2021, Melissa Santos posted a video on social media and stated that Brian Cage, her husband is being misused in All Elite Wrestling. She went on to express in an interview that she was not going to hold her tongue about it.
Cage stated that some in AEW, who he chose not to name, made that a bigger issue than what it was. He assumed there is some sort of professional jealously within the company.
Well, I think I retweeted and favorited plenty of things that plenty of my fans have said about me because why would I not? They’re supporting me. So regardless if someone agrees or not, it’s someone’s opinion and it’s positive for me so why would I be against that? Now the fact that it’s my wife, obviously she’s gonna have a bias opinion but I feel like that’s why, ‘Here, I guess I’ll put a little sh*t on you.’ It’s not really from what she said. It’s from certain people backstage and so I’m looking at the camera like I’m looking at them that don’t like me there that pointed that out and brought that heat to me intentionally. So, it wouldn’t have been a bigger deal, but certain individuals there made it a big deal and that’s what they hung their hat on. So it wasn’t so much the tweet…
Well nobody else would [know that other part of it]. There’s more to it but I’m not gonna say that… I know what certain individuals they are too but…
I don’t even have heat with them. Look, I show up, I go to the gym, I eat, I want the best match possible, I go home, I don’t hang out, I don’t drink, I don’t party. Pretty simple, easygoing guy and some people are upset because they don’t look like me or can’t move as well as me with the way I look. That’s on them. So I guess if you wanna talk ‘professional jealousy’, that’s what it is.
Absolutely [they made it a bigger deal], because without naming names, we could maybe put it together. There’s another pretty big superstar’s wife that’s done heavily criticized things at our company that there’s no repercussions for that and even then, Melissa [Santos] didn’t say anything negative whatsoever. She just said, ‘Oh, Brian Cage has been underutilized. He was a champion in IMPACT, he was a superstar in PWG, he was this is Lucha Underground. He was great.’ So, she didn’t say anything bad and even what she originally tweeted to was a journalist — a write-up about me so she didn’t even say anything. She just retweeted that and then I had retweeted what she had retweeted. So even then, it wasn’t — and the write-up said nothing negative about AEW or his [Tony Khan] booking of it or anything whatsoever. Basically it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m a big Brian Cage fan. I hope he gets used better.’ So I mean…
Coming out of Death Before Dishonor, POST Wrestling’s Wai Ting and Kate from Montreal recorded their review of the show which can be found here.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit K & S WrestleFest with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
